Hedge Witch
Psst… It’s Here… NEW BOOK!!!
I’ve started writing a new fictional series, called Witches of the New Forest. The Kindle edition of the first book, HEDGE WITCH is now up and available for pre-order – yay! The paperback version will be ready for pre-order next week. This is the first installment of my new fictional witchy series set in the little village of Burley, in the New Forest 🙂 Here is the synopsis:
“Deep in the heart of the New Forest in England, lies the little village of Burley. Known for its connection to the flamboyant Witch, Sybil Leek in the 1950’s, this place is now a tourist hotspot for those who are fascinated by the occult and the paranormal. However, there is a much deeper secret known to only a select few in the area.
Witchcraft is real, and there are very powerful practitioners of the art that still live in and around Burley to this day. Magick runs deep within some family lines, passed on from generation to generation. There are also other magical beings that have existed in the area for thousands of years. As a liminal place, Burley is where myth and magick come together.
Two Canadian sisters, Hunter and Ryder, inherit their aunt’s property on the edge of the village. As they learn more about Burley, they also begin to learn more of their own heritage and how it is woven into the secrets that lie in the heart of this quaint little village.
This is the first part of Hunter’s story. The eldest, Hunter is the careful and cautious sister. A university professor, she is familiar with some of the history of the area. However, Hunter’s world is turned upside-down when she discovers not only her family legacy, but the extent of her own powers. Her guarded heart is opened by the love of a man whose life’s work is in dedication to the land, and whose encouragement to come into her true power changes her life forever.”
I am having so much fun writing fiction again. The characters write the story for me, and I’m just sitting back and watching all the fun, drama, intrigue and action! The first three books are all planned, and I’m already a third of the way through the second book, which is also the second part of Hunter’s story. The third book will be her sister’s (Ryder’s) tale. If you’d like to read something fun, funny, witchy, romantic and feel-good, then join me in the New Forest with this new series.
Here’s the link to pre-order the Kindle edition now! It will be sent to your e-reader on 28 October, just in time for Samhain 🙂 Paperback edition will be available for pre-order next week, so I’ll keep you posted when that is released.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DJL1X635/
What Is It Like Being A Pagan Author?
What is it like being a Pagan author? Well, it might not be quite what you think! Growing up, I had always wanted to be an author. I wanted to write fantasy fiction, and indeed have written a fantasy book and hope to do more. This year I’m considering trying my hand at some modern, witchy fiction, alongside other books that I am working on. I hope to post up samples up on my Patreon page, along with other writing that I am currently working on later in the year. So, back to the question, what is it like being a Pagan author?
It’s wonderful to be able to share my journeys, my insights and my experience with my readers. To put information out there into the wide world, and have people respond to it is incredible. It can feel like you are setting your work free, to go where it needs to, while at the same time feeling scary as you don’t know how it will be received. But I have had the joy of so many people connecting with me, messaging me, emailing me and commenting here on my blog and on my other social media platforms about how much my work has resonated with them. It fills my heart with joy to know that I have helped, inspired or guided someone on their journey. That in some way I have helped others in this community.
When writing a book about your religion or spirituality, you are sharing a very intimate part of yourself. You are putting this out into the world, and hoping that it doesn’t get destroyed by negativity. You want to be well-received, or else it can feel like sending your child to school and they come home and tell you how they’ve been bullied all day. Putting work out there means sticking your head above the parapet. You are doing something you love, but you have to hope that the outside world will not destroy that love. It takes courage to write.
However, if you are considering becoming a Pagan author, don’t give up your day job! For most authors in any genre, writing is something that they have to do on the side, because the pay just isn’t that great. Until you can sell hundreds of thousands of books, your income will not support this career choice full-time. Many authors, myself included, have other platforms that help to support us, such as on Patreon. I also have a Bandcamp page, where I share music, podcasts, meditations and more as a sideline to my writing. If I was living alone, I wouldn’t be able to survive on these avenues alone. Many people know of my YouTube channel, and again that is an excellent venue for my creativity, but I do not make any money from it, as I refuse to monetise my channel. If I can’t control the type of advertising that appears on there, I won’t do it, and I feel that there is too much advertising in the world as it stands. To think that a MacDonald’s advert could appear in one of my videos just makes my skin crawl.
Royalties paid on books range from the usual 10% net income on every sale (that means that after everyone such as the retailer, the publisher etc. have taken their cut, you then get 10% of what’s left), to perhaps 15% if you sell more than 10,000 copies. Some publishers go up to 20% or 25% if you sell a whole bunch more, but again that is net income and still isn’t all that much. Audiobooks usually offer the same, but can go up to 25% from the start, depending on your contract. E-books, similar percentages applies.
As a Pagan author these days, you are also expected to do a bunch of marketing. The publishers will initially do a big push at the release of your book (if they are any good), but then it is usually up to you to maintain the momentum. If you already don’t have much time on your hands, using any spare time for marketing can be an issue. Knowledge of all the different platforms is required, and many Pagan authors have to teach themselves how to use them, how to create a “brand” for themselves and more. Again, this is not an easy thing to do, especially if you are not into that sort of thing (most of us aren’t). It doesn’t always work either, which can result in taking time away from your writing. Getting a publicist can help with this, but the amount that you pay them will usually cancel out, or at least take a huge chunk of any profit you do make from the sales of your book. We are not big-time authors, we are selling to a very niche group of people with very different interests than your popular crime, horror, thriller, fantasy, or romance author.
Essentially you will need to be tech savvy, when all you want to do is snuggle up with some cottagecore.
The time it takes to create a good book is also a factor. It takes me usually a year to research for a new book, and there will always be years of learning before then which are added to the mix. Then there is a year of writing that follows. A good book doesn’t just happen in a couple of months. After the research and the writing, it then goes through several editing processes. Then there is the discussion of artwork (the book covers and interior artwork), and the correspondence between yourself and your editors regarding these and everything else mentioned above.
It has a lot to do with finding a balance between all these things: between the work that is less enjoyable than writing, and the writing itself. It is also being open to trying new experiences and taking on information and suggestions from others regarding your work. There is an essential task of taking good care of yourself as well, so that you don’t burn out while trying to balance all these things such as the research, the writing, the marketing, the design, the branding, etc. It is essential to take some time out to rest, to recharge and to ground yourself and your practice once again.
Often, as authors we are so busy writing about our spiritual practices that we don’t get much time to actually do them!
These periods of rest are necessary so that you have the energy to go somewhere new with your practice, to try new things and have new experiences. This will allow you to write about these new experiences and lessons instead of just re-hashing all your previous material.
Having a good publisher is for me essential. Self-publishing is extremely difficult, and it a lot of hard work. Publishers usually have much larger platforms to operate from than an individual, and so will sell more books generally. There are one or two self-published Pagan authors who have made it on their own, some of whom are now publishing through well-known companies. Finding good self-published material can be a challenge, as the expertise in editing, design and manufacture usually just isn’t there. Producing your own self-published work requires a knowledge and skill set that most authors don’t have and need to learn. Despite years of working in marketing for a world famous concert hall, my two self-published works still only sell a handful every year. My works with publishers such as Llewellyn sell a great deal more.
I am so grateful to my publishing team at Llewellyn for all that they have done for me and my work. I have published my last two books with them (The Book of Hedge Druidry and also The Path of the Hedge Witch) and am releasing another one with them in the autumn of 2024. Their years of experience and expertise has helped me to create my best work with them. Just with regards to proof-reading and suggestions in the editing process, they are hands down the best. They are also the oldest publisher of Pagan material, and so have that accolade behind them, reaching not only those of us who have been buying their material for decades, but also reaching out to people new to Paganism and all its various traditions. They are a company that has evolved over the decades, learned invaluable lessons and now produce the most wonderful books!
We authors live in a very different world to those authors who were releasing books 20, 30, 40 years ago. We have had to learn to multitask on a whole other level. We live in a consumer culture, and that takes its toll on the writer. We are expected to create content for various online platforms, and not just produce a book. We have and maintain our own websites and social media. Requests to do unpaid work, such as speaking at conference, writing articles for magazines, do interviews for other brands on their platforms: it all adds up. Authors often can’t give enough to meet the demand for free material. I know of authors that have over 88,000 subscribers on YouTube, but have less than 20 people supporting them on Patreon. So many people just want to consume content for free. The books often get lost, or ignored. Who can be bothered to buy and read a whole book when there is so much info out there online for free? Or available via illegal downloading?
That is another issue that authors today face: illegal sharing and downloading of their books on various internet sites. Most of these are scams intended to install trojans on your device, but some actually do offer your book to others for free. I’ve had to tell people to take down my book from their websites, as what they were doing is illegal. If anyone is offering you a pdf version of a book, know that it is an illegal download, and the author is not getting paid one penny for it. If money is tight, there are always libraries and second-hand book shops both in the flesh and online that you can visit to obtain the material legally, and still allow the author the benefit of the sale of at least one book in the process. I’ve written a whole other blog post about that HERE.
Authors just have to try to navigate living in a world that is all about consumption, rather than conservation. It is hard to live and work in this kind of environment and still preserve the work that we are able to produce. We can’t give enough away for free, and so others will do it for us.
This takes me on to the issue of artificial intelligence. The upside to all your hard work means that you reach a greater audience of people. The downside is that you reach the wrong kind of people, who are willing to take advantage of your hard work without doing any of their own. As of writing this blog post, I’ve had at least two of my books put through an AI programme to be “rewritten” for someone else to cash in on. And currently there is no law to stop them from doing that. When buying books, please do try to ensure that they are written by actual authors, rather than robots. Check for a website for the author, as well as taking a look at how many books they have released lately. For example, the “author” Mari Silva released four or five books in February 2024 alone. This either means that there is a group of ghost writers going under that name, or that the works have been processed and stolen from other authors using artificial intelligence. The fact that within six months to a year of some popular book releases by real authors in the community, “Mari Silva” then releases a book on the same subject, with similar contents just differently arranged. This deeply suggests an AI theft of someone’s hard work. And with the programmes being so good lately, it’s impossible to tell the difference between a real author and a robot just from reading the work.
Again, this all relates to a culture of consumerism, with its inherent greed, rather than a culture of preservation. We need to help preserve the hard-working authors that do the work, and who usually get paid very little in return in comparison with other forms of employment. We need to support the authors we love, however we can, whether that’s moral or financial support. We also need to buy more books, if we have the resources, instead of getting all our content online through other means.
Of course I am biased in my opinion, because I am an author. But I am also a reader, and I LOVE books. There is nothing like holding a new book in your hands. I remember saving up my pennies in my early days of college back in 1991, and then doing the hour-long bus journey to the witchcraft shop in downtown Montreal where I could buy a new book to help me on my journey. These books and their authors became not only my mentors, but also my greatest spiritual friends. Even though some have passed on from this world these past 30 years, their words still live on and I feel their presence in my life and in my work.
Being a Pagan author is a wonderful career, if you can make it work. It’s not an easy route to success, and it still succumbs to the dream of “overnight fame” and the like. The odds of that happening are similar to being an overnight pop star, or YouTube influencer. You can produce the most beautiful content on any platform, but whether or not it gets picked up is rather random.
However, if you have something to say, if you have a skill to impart, if you have inspiration whispering in your ear to go and write than book, then go for it! And I wish you all the best! Knowing that you can make a difference in people’s lives is worth all the challenges that you will face in this line of work.
Blessings to you all.
Available now, my new book – The Path of the Hedge Witch: Simple, Natural Magic and the Art of Hedge Riding: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Path-Hedgewitch-Simple-Natural-Riding/dp/0738772283
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Website: http://www.joannavanderhoeven.com/
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Blog: https://downtheforestpath.com/
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkI8C2dqmUb-eatjxaDWXmw Buy my book – Hedge Druidry: A Complete Guide for the Solitary Seeker: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Hedge-Druidry-Complete-Solitary/dp/0738758256
Autumn Equinox Ritual
Here is an Autumn Equinox ritual that you can perform either alone or with a group. This is my favourite season and ritual, and so I look forward to it every year! Blessings of autumn to you all. xoxo
The autumn equinox is a time of balance, when the length of the day and night are equal. It’s a time to stop and take stock of the year, of where we are on the Wheel of the Year, deeply entrenched in the harvest season. Much as the harvest continues around us, so does our spiritual harvest manifest right now. It’s a time to look at what we have achieved over the year, our hopes and dreams that were dreamt in the winter, planted in the spring and brought to careful fruition throughout the summer. In this time of balance, we pause, take a breath and assess before we fall into the dark half of the year.
It is important to stop, and be in this moment of balance. Balance is not something that we achieve and then forget about it, no, it is something that must be worked at continuously. If you are in doubt about that, try standing on one foot for any length of time, and see how much effort that requires!
In this ritual, we stop and simply be in the moment for a while. But first, we must cleanse and prepare ourselves for entering into the dark half of the year, for we do not wish to carry some things forward into this new time. No, we release what we need to before we move into a period of rest, for we do not wish to carry everything with us. Instead, we pare down, we simplify so that we can obtain a true and sustaining rest in the darkness. We cleanse and purify so that we are truly ready to begin this new journey into the autumn and winter months.
What you will need for this ritual:
Incense or herbal smudge stick (or a hand-held fan if you cannot have smoke)
Autumn leaves and decoration for the altar
Offering
Ritual
Decorate the altar with autumnal leaves, nuts, berries, etc.
Cast the circle (scatter some fallen leaves around the circle, if indoors)
Call the elements
Call to the deities
Sit quietly and simply breathe for a few moments. Let your breathing slow down, let your shoulders and facial muscles relax. When you are ready, bring to mind that which you want to let go, that which you want to release before you walk into the dark half of the year. When you have this firmly in your mind, put your hands down onto the ground (or floor) and push that down and into the earth. Let the energy be transformed by the earth, even as the earth transforms the fallen leaves into vital nutrients for the next season. Release everything that needs to go, and then lift your hands and shake off any excess energy connected to that which you released. Sit for a few moments once again and just breathe.
When you are ready, you will begin to cleanse and purify your body’s energy. Burn a purifying incense blend, or use an herbal smudge stick and waft the smoke over and around all of your body. Use can also use a handheld fan, and simply let the element of air cleanse and purify your energetic body. Allow the smoke or air to dissolve or blow away that which still remains in your energy field that is unwanted. See the energy field around you glowing brighter as you perform this, beginning to glow with a rich, golden light emanating from your heart and encircling your entire body. When you have finished cleansing, sit for a moment in that golden aura, letting it fill your body and soul. If you like, you can pull in some energy from the earth and the sky, in the Roots and Branches mediation, to ground and centre yourself in this moment.
Now let us balance the chakras. Starting with the root chakra at the very base of your spine, visualise a red disk that is slowly spinning. See and feel this disk glowing brighter and spinning faster and more freely with your attention, opening up and allowing the energy from the base of your spine to travel upwards towards your sacral chakra, located in your spine at genital level. See the disk that resides there glowing orange, spinning slowly, and with the energy from the root chakra it begins to glow brighter and spin faster, throwing off anything that doesn’t belong. When this chakra is spinning freely, see the energy move upwards to the solar plexus chakra, located in the part of your spine that is centred between your breast and your belly button. See this yellow disk glowing softly and spinning slowly, and with the energy of the root and sacral chakras entering into it, it begins to glow brighter and spin faster, releasing anything unwanted. When this chakra is spinning freely and is open, the energy moves upwards towards the heart chakra. Here a green spinning disk revolves slowly on the spine near your heart. See this chakra’s green colour growing brighter and spinning faster as the energies from the solar plexus, sacral and root chakra enter into it. The chakra opens and spins faster, flowing freely until the energy moves upwards once again, this time to the throat chakra, where a blue disk glows and spins in your spine at your throat area. The energies of all the chakras below enter into this area, making the disk spin faster and glow brighter, until it is moving freely. Then the energy moves up to your third eye chakra, which glows a violet colour. The energies of all the free chakras below set this disk spinning faster and glowing brighter, until it is moving freely and spinning brightly. When this energy moves up to the final crown chakra, you feel in the crown of your head a white disk of light that spins ever faster with the energies of the chakras below, glowing brighter and spinning faster until it is moving freely.
Now feel all the chakras’ energies, spinning brightly and freely along your spine. When the crown chakra is ready, push the energy out into a fountain of white light that bursts out of the crown of your head and falls down through your auric field, blessing and energising it. Draw up the energy from the root chakra, bringing it up the body and fountaining out through the top of your head in a continuous, beautiful waterfall of energy and light. Continue with this for as long as you feel necessary.
When you are ready, gently close off the fountain of energy from the crown of your head. Draw in the brightly glowing chakra disks closer to your body, damping down their light a bit and “zipping up” their energy. You may keep the root and crown chakra open a little more, to receive grounding earth energy and astral divine energy throughout your day. Finish up the process of zipping up, and when you are ready open your eyes and take a few deep breaths to bring yourself fully back to the here and now.
Now is the time to mediate on the balance of darkness and light, on the theme of balance. See the autumn equinox as an opportunity to remind yourself that balance is not a static thing, but an active and moving energy that shifts and adjusts to everything around it. It flows, it moves, just as the energies of the seasons move through the land. Nothing is permanent, everything is in flow.
Welcome the dark half of the year, with the evenings that are now drawing in, the autumn winds and the changing colours of the leaves. This is a beautiful and wonderful time of the year, an enchanting time where we begin to let go and fall into the dark half of the year where we can find rest and recuperation. Allow it to happen, do not fight it and enjoy the moment of pause, like the moment between breaths, before the shift takes us into the season of autumn. Simply be in the moment. When you are ready, give your offering to the land in gratitude for all that you have received. Close down your ritual and, if you can, take a walk in nature to feel the energies of autumn flowing all around.
The Audiobook is Here!
The new audiobook (the first version didn’t meet the criteria) of The Path of the Hedge Witch is now available on Audible! I am so very pleased with the narration by Coleen Marlo. And the cover even has a cat on it. Purrrfect!
Paperback pushed back…
Release date for the paperback version of The Path of the Hedge Witch has been pushed back due to backlog at the printers. We’re now looking at November 8 release for the paperback. Kindle version still looks to be on track for and October 8 release though!
Interview with Eron Mazza!
Last week I had the most lovely interview with Eron Mazza on The Witching Hour podcast. You can listen to the whole thing HERE.
Down the Forest Path 